


To See The Old Gods Go

by bessemerprocess



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: Female Friendship, Gen, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide, Yuletide 2012, space, space shuttle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 18:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/600701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bessemerprocess/pseuds/bessemerprocess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sloan wants to stand witness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To See The Old Gods Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [catbirdfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/catbirdfish/gifts).



> Thanks to my extra awesome beta reader.

Yuletide

June 10, 2011

“I want to cover the shuttle launch,” Sloan says, glass in hand. They’re at the bar at Hang Chew’s, which is basically where they always are these days when they aren’t in the studio. Jim, Neal, Don, and Maggie are holding down their corner spot, talking about something, probably Bigfoot, or maybe UFOs. Everyone else has left for the night. If Sloan had somewhere to go, she probably would’ve left too, but these people are her people now, so at midnight on a Friday, she is drinking cheap booze and trying not to get sucked into a conversation on cryptozoology. 

“The economics of the space program?” Mac asks, as she empties her glass of red and signals the bartender for another. They aren’t on the air tomorrow, and everyone could use some time to wind down, especially Mac, Sloan thinks. It’s still Mac’s fourth or fifth, but the woman can hold her alcohol surprisingly well. Sloan had asked her about it once, but Mac’s only answer had been, “Marines.”

“No, just the space program. We should be going there. Space, I mean. We should be going there, and we shouldn’t be stopping the shuttle program without something to replace it,” Sloan replies. It isn’t her beat, but she’s been following the story ever since NASA made the decision. 

“You had a telescope as a kid,” Mac says, and Sloan nods.

“I did. Or really it was a present for my brother. He wasn’t all that interested in it, and I appropriated it.” Sloan gestures to the bartender, and he pours her another glass.

“By which you mean, stole it.” Mac grins like the Cheshire Cat, but she always smiles like that at this point into the night when she knows she’s right about something Sloan wasn’t planning on admitting to.

“Either way, yes, I had a telescope as a kid,” Sloan replies with a shrug, trying not to give away anything.

“You had a telescope as a kid, and now you’re an economist.” Mac makes it sound like a question, but Sloan’s not taking the bait. 

“An economist who wants to cover the last shuttle launch,” Sloan says. “I went to space camp as a kid.”

“Did you hijack the space shuttle like in that movie?” Mac asks, because that’s just how Mac’s brain works. Sloan is never going to understand it, but she still appreciates the brilliance.

“While between you and Will and this show, I do sometimes feel like I live in a movie, one directed by an absurdist, or a surrealist, or maybe just a kid on YouTube, I don’t actually live in a movie.”

“So that would be no?” Mac asks, sounding disappointed. 

“I and a group of other children were accidentally launched into space and the United States government covered it up.” Sloan puts on her best poker face, and doesn’t even twitch at Mac’s quizzical expression.

“They did a very good job of it,” Mac says. Sloan groans, because she can tell Mac’s already thinking of ways to find proof, and what kind of awards the story will win them all. 

“Mac. I did not, at any point in my life, hijack a space shuttle.” Sometimes, Sloan has found, it is necessary to be very clear about these things, or Mac will decide to channel Neal, and start assuming that Sloan is part of the conspiracy to do whatever. Probably, secretly take over the world, or make everyone hop on one foot while juggling geese. She never knew with Mac.

Mac shakes her head and sighs a little, disappointed. “But you want to go see the last space shuttle launch.”

“I do,” Sloan replies.

“You know it’s a little late.” _A little late_ is a pretty big understatement. If Sloan had been planning this in advance, she should have been doing it months ago, but months ago she was distracted with other things. And now, she wants to go and watch this machine, this machine that humanity has created to fling themselves out of their own atmosphere and to the stars, be launched one last time. 

“I do.”

“And this is why you are asking me.” Mac uses her wine glass to point at herself.

“It is,” Sloan replies. 

“Will is going.”

“I know.”

“I only have one other press pass for a reporter. It was supposed to be for Julie. Except Julie broke her arm skydiving. Seriously, who jumps out of a perfectly good plane?” Mac says, her glass sloshing a bit dangerously.

Sloan nods. “I have heard about Julie and the skydiving and the arm. Which, yes, I don’t understand either. But that is why I am asking.”

“Unlike Julie, however, you are not a science correspondent. Unless economics is a science, and even so, it would be very much the wrong kind of science,” Mac says.

“I know more about science than you know about economics.”

“Below the belt,” Mac says, but she’s smiling, so Sloan doesn’t apologize.

“I minored in astronomy,” Sloan replies, instead. She had minored in astronomy, and almost considered making it her major, but she’d loved numbers more than she had loved stars. It had been a hard choice, but one she doesn’t regret. 

“I minored in English literature. You probably know more about science than I know about science, let alone economics.”

“But not Shakespeare.”

“I could recite him if you would like,” Mac says, and Sloan fears that the entire bar is about to be subjected to an impromptu performance of Hamlet, so she cuts her of.

“So can I go to Florida with Will?”

Mac sighs. “I really am rather good at Twelfth Night.”

Sloan gives her and look, and Mac shakes her head again. “Fine. Yes, you may go to Florida with Will.”

“Thank you, Mac. I just, I want the chance to stand witness, as something so great and awesome passes out of the world one last time.”

“Sloan,” Mac says, low and slow, “if you get the chance to hijack that shuttle and go into space, you take it, okay?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sloan says, “I will do that.”

“I’m looking forward to it. Just don’t take Will with you, he’ll hog all the oxygen.” Mac smiles and hops down off her barstool. “We should rejoin the rest of our comrades in arms.”

“Yeah,” Sloan says, but she is thinking of stars.


End file.
